Thursday, August 18, 2011

week 16--Gifts from the Sea and Mother Nature! John & Ginger-zone 4

The last week has been nothing less than exhilarating and I am so proud and happy to be part of a project that does such amazing things for sea turtles and the planet.

Saturday was just awesome. My 6 year old nephew, Jackson was visiting with us and as soon as his parents walked to my front door to drop him off, they spotted a baby snapping turtle in our yard!

I told Jackson he was bringing "turtle luck" and I was sure we would find some live hatchlings that night at our excavation.

We then went for a boat ride and went tubing, which was fun for both Jackson and me.

Then on our boat ride to find a "beach" for playing in the sand, we saw a huge pod of dolphins. Jackson had never seen dolphins before and he was just beside himself.

I told him that God had given us a gift to let us be able to see the dolphins and he said, "I love dolphins and I love God" (how sweet).

Later, we ate at PT's and returned home to shower. When we got out of the car, a Box Turtle was waiting for us in our driveway!!!

Off to the serpentarium and Kilwin's for ice cream.

And finally, down to Access 41 for our nest excavation! The moon was nothing less than gorgeous as it led 5 sea turtle hatchlings into the arms of Mother Ocean!

What excitement!!! Some things never get old no matter how many times you see them. Dolphins and Sea Turtles in the same day---what an amazing gift!!! A wonderful day with my nephew.

On Monday, John and I walked zone 4 hoping for tracks, but it was not to be this week. However, the moon was still beautiful.

We collected 4 bags of garbage (less than normal for us). I will note that we were short on time, so when we returned to Oceanic, we did not have time to pick up trash in that area. I felt so guilty, but it is what it is. In addition to lots of paper and stray plastic, we also found the following:

5 plastic bags (one we picked out of the ocean)!
5 cigs (of course there were so many more that we did not collect)
1 shoe
34 various bottle caps
firework remnants